Kevin Attard almost walked away. Away from the horses, the racetrack, and the sport he loved the most.
His father and uncles were making a solid living in horse racing, but Kevin’s young career as a trainer, which had started well, had stalled.
In his third year he won three races. The next year, 2004, he had four wins and purse earnings of just $55,000, a paltry $1,400 per starter.
“It seemed like I couldn’t anything right. And here I was, a newlywed with a baby and I couldn’t support my family. Racing wasn’t paying the mortgage. Thank goodness my wife had a job.
I was almost gone out of the game.”
Those memories came flooding back to Kevin in the aftermath of the biggest win of his career when Moira, affectionately known as Canada’s Queen of Racing, captured the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf at famed Del Mar racetrack in San Diego on November 2nd. She was just the seventh Canadian-bred to win a Breeders’ Cup race in 41 years.
The tears came hard and fast as Kevin cheered Moira to her epic victory and later as he negotiated a raucous press conference, regaling in Moira’s win and talking about her pending sale.
“I’m just so happy and so proud of her. When I think of all the struggles and sacrifices over the years, it just feels incredible.”
An Idea, and a Group of Friends
Moments earlier in the Del Mar winner’s circle, Moira’s owners were delirious. Montreal-born Donato Lanni, who bought Moira for a group of Canadian friends and himself called X-Men Racing, hoisted the Breeders’ Cup trophy high. American co-owners Sol Kumin, of the widely successful Madaket Stable, and SF Bloodstock’s manager Tom Ryan also celebrated. Just behind them, David Anderson, a successful Ontario breeder and one of the eight members of X-Men, was overwhelmed.
It was 14 years to the day that David was in a Florida hospital room watching the Breeders’ Cup races with his dying father, Bob.
“The sunglasses were hiding my tears. It was incredible to see her win. My dad, he’d bred great horses, never bred a Breeders’ Cup winner, so this was extra special for me. To imagine him up there watching, well, I was crying like a baby.”
It was a movie-script ending to Moira’s Canadian legacy which saw her attract a following of fans across the globe with her record-setting Queen’s Plate win in 2022 and more than a year of getting close to that Grade 1 pinnacle. When she flashed across the finish line in the Breeders’ Cup, Moira etched her name alongside some of the great turf mares in history.
It was 2019 when Donato Lanni, regarded as one of the world’s most gifted judges of horseflesh, came up with an idea to put together a group of friends to buy some horses to race in Canada. Donato was a horse owner when he was a teenager, learning the physiology of racehorses while working with Standardbreds at Blue Bonnets Raceway in Montreal.
He got a business degree and headed to Kentucky and despite having to live in a tent at the Kentucky Horse Park in the beginning, he soon worked his way through some of the biggest farms in racing. Soon he was selecting yearlings who became champions, stars such as Arrogate, who earned $17 million, and Kentucky Derby winner Authentic. He was in the winner’s circle for that monumental victory.
In 2020, Lanni sifted through thousands of yearlings at half a dozen sales and formed the first X-Men Racing partnership made up of David Anderson and their Standardbred buddies Robert LeBlanc, Steve Heimbecker, Clay Horner, John Fielding, Alexandra Verret, Daniel Plouffe, Gabriel Dimiele, plus American Nick Pelligreen.
“These are all friends who have had successful businesses, have done well in racing and are very lucky,” said Donato.
Moira, a beautifully-made bay filly bred by Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs and by his stallion Ghostzapper was hip number 951 at the 2020 Keeneland September Yearling sale. Donato got her for $150,000 (US).
When it came time to select a trainer for X-Men, which joined forces with Madaket and SF Bloodstock, it was an easy choice for Donato.
It was a colt that he had purchased at Keeneland in 2005 for Steve Stavro’s Knob Hill Farms that led Donato to Kevin Attard. Kevin was seemingly days away from giving up training when his uncle, champion jockey Larry Attard, had heard Stave Stavro was looking for a trainer. Kevin’s dad, champion trainer Tino, encouraged him to go for an interview.
“I met him in a nearby abandoned hotel where he still had an office on the top floor,” remembered Kevin. “There were SWAT teams that used it as a practice facility and it was just covered in dust. When I walked in, I felt like I was in a movie.”
He walked out as the private trainer for Knob Hill Stables. One of his first pupils was that Donato purchase, Leonnatus Anteas, who became a Canadian champion.
Kevin almost won the Queen’s Plate very early in his career when Knob Hill’s Alezzandro was second in 2007 and gave the young trainer his first Canadian classic when he won the Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie.
The Plate eluded Kevin for the next 15 years.
A very special filly
The first group of X-Men youngsters arrived at Kevin’s barn in 2021 and Moira, named for a character from the popular Canadian TV show Schitt’s Creek, quickly became a favourite.
Exercise rider Korina McLean, who had only recently returned to riding in 2021 after breaking her pelvis and leg in a horrific training accident, fell in love with the filly and would end up being with her virtually every day. Peter Lopez would soon develop a strong relationship with Moira as her groom.
“One day, Kevin called us and said he would like to run Moira in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes for her first career start,” said Anderson. “We didn’t even have her on our radar as one of our top horses at the time.”
Anyone who watched that year’s Princess Elizabeth knew what they saw was something special. Moira, shuffled back behind fillies in the 1 1/16 mile race, wove her way through her competition and galloped to a big win.
Moira trained in Kentucky before she set forth on her three-year-old campaign and by now her human handlers were realizing that she was not just special, but a bit different.
Before the Woodbine Oaks, Moira danced around the saddling enclosure, reared up and mucked up her two hind shoes that ultimately had to be removed, She kicked the blacksmith to boot.
Antics aside, Moira blew away the field by 10 3/4 lengths, one of the biggest winning margins in Oaks history. In the winner’s circle, she was still on ‘go’ and barged into the bushes.
“She’s not nervous, it’s just that on race day she gets on her toes,” said Lanni to the media in his most diplomatic tone. Away from press he whispered, “She’s a bitch.”
Moira was headed to the Plate as the favourite over the boys. Kevin and his staff of 40 still had some 70 horses to train in the week leading up to the big race. Just days before the Plate, the worst happened; one of Kevin’s unraced youngsters collapsed and died from a heart issue.
“I called my dad and I just broke down,” said Kevin. “At the same time I was supposed to be talking to the media and I was so upset.”
On Plate day, Anderson went up to Kevin for a pep talk.
“He said, ‘No matter what happens today, you have done a great job with this filly’. It choked me up.”
A large crowd made for a lot of noise as Kevin saddled Moira. He had brought the filly over to the Woodbine walking ring numerous times since the Oaks to school her, but she was antsy.
Standing next to his lucky seat in the grandstand, Kevin had his binoculars affixed on Moira as she entered the gate. Beside him were his son Joshua and father Tino.
Moira and Hernandez assumed a perfect position early in the 1 1/4 mile race and when she was given her cue, Moira powered past the front runners and rolled to a seven-length win in a track record time of 2:01.48.
Three generations of Attards embraced. Kevin had his Plate.
Moira would later make her first appearance at the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, the 2022 edition at Keeneland, finishing a respectable fifth against the best older turf mares in the world.
As a four-year-old, Moira was almost done filling in her long frame and she had a carefully-organized five-race schedule at Woodbine before the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita. She won the Canadian Stakes (G2) and was second or third in all of her other graded stakes starts, while occasionally being hindered by wet grass courses or slow paces. She ended her campaign with a stellar run in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita to be third, just over a length behind European stars Inspiral and Warm Heart.
The X-Men and company sent Moira through the 2023 November Sale at Fasig-Tipton, in essence to gauge her value and see if any partners wanted to sell their share. The bidding reached a tantalizing $3 million, but the team didn’t bite. Lanni signed the buyer as DM Bloodstock, a nod to Del Mar, where the next Breeders’ Cup would be held.
It proved to be a winning gamble.
After some well-deserved R&R at Margaux Farm in Kentucky, Moira rejoined Attard and friends at Woodbine. Her first assignment would be Saratoga in July. She had a brilliant run, a close second-place finish in the Diana Handicap (G1). From there, Moira went to Colonial Downs in Virginia and defeated her arch rival, 2023 Horse of the Year Fev Rover (Ire), in the Beverly D Stakes (G2).
Back on home turf for the E.P. Taylor (G1), Moira and others were foiled by her own stablemate, Full Count Felicia, who stole the 1 1/4 mile turf race on the pace.
No matter, confidence was high as Moira headed west to Del Mar. It was her time.
A Tearful Goodbye
“Sure, she beats to her own drum and she tried to give us a heart attack on occasion,” said Anderson. “But she loved the people who were closest to her, those who were with her every day.”
As Moira was led into the auction ring two days after her Breeders’ Cup win, Kevin was away from the crowd, finding it difficult to watch his pride and joy sell. When the hammer fell for the last time, Moira had sold for $4.3 million to Australian powerhouse farm Yulong Investments. In a matter of days, she was headed Down Under.
“Moira truly is a special horse,” said Anderson. “This was all achieved by Donato and Kevin. Donato, the purchaser, the manager and an owner, and Kevin, the trainer. These aren’t computer guys sitting in an office. Everything they know about horses is stored between their ears. And for Kevin, Moira put him on the international stage. He truly loves her.”
Hours after Kevin found out Moira was headed to Australia, he tried to put his feelings into words. It wasn’t easy, as the tears kept coming.
“I spent the last three years knowing exactly where she was, what she was doing and how much she was eating. I saw her pretty much every day. This is very difficult. I’m going to miss her. She has meant everything to me.”
